The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
(M119) But while the human heart is thus commonly eaten for the sake of
imbuing the eater with the qualities of its original owner, it is not, as
we have already seen, the only part of the body which is consumed for this
purpose. Thus in New Caledonia the victors in a fight used to eat the
bodies of the slain, “not, as might be supposed, from a taste for human
flesh, but in order to assimilate part of the bravery which the deceased
was supposed to possess.”(459) Among the tribes about Maryborough in
Queensland, when a man was killed in a ceremonial fight, it was customary
for his friends to skin and eat him, in order that his warlike virtues
might pass into the eaters.(460) Warriors of the Theddora and Ngarigo
tribes in South-Eastern Australia used to eat the hands and feet of their
slain enemies, believing that in this way they acquired some of the
qualities and courage of the dead.(461) In the Dieri tribe of Central
Australia, when a man had been condemned and killed by a properly
constituted party of executioners, the weapons with which the deed was
done were washed in a small wooden vessel, and the bloody mixture was
administered to all the slayers in a prescribed manner, while they lay
down on their backs and the elders poured it into their mouths. This was
believed to give them double strength, courage, and great nerve for any
future enterprise.(462) The Kamilaroi of New South Wales ate the liver as
well as the heart of a brave man to get his courage.(463) In Tonquin also
there is a popular superstition that the liver of a brave man makes brave
any who partake of it. Hence when a Catholic missionary was beheaded in
Tonquin in 1837, the executioner cut out the liver of his victim and ate
part of it, while a soldier attempted to devour another part of it
raw.(464) With a like intent the Chinese swallow the bile of notorious
bandits who have been executed.(465) The Dyaks of Sarawak used to eat the
palms of the hands and the flesh of the knees of the slain in order to
steady their own hands and strengthen their own knees.(466) The Tolalaki,
notorious head-hunters of Central Celebes, drink the blood and eat the
brains of their victims that they may become brave.(467) The Italones of
the Philippine Islands drink the blood of their slain enemies, and eat
part of the back of their heads and of their entrails raw to acquire their
courage. For the same reason the Efugaos, another tribe of the
Philippines, suck the brains of their foes.(468) In like manner the Kai of
German New Guinea eat the brains of the enemies they kill in order to
acquire their strength.(469) Among the Kimbunda of Western Africa, when a
new king succeeds to the throne, a brave prisoner of war is killed in
order that the king and nobles may eat his flesh, and so acquire his
strength and courage.(470) The notorious Zulu chief Matuana drank the gall
of thirty chiefs, whose people he had destroyed, in the belief that it
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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